Tuesday, October 27, 2009

On a whim, I pulled out a collection of Woody Woodpecker cartoons recently. Having grown up on the sparse 1960s TV cartoons, I was reminded that when Walter Lantz was on top of his game, he was really, really good. This background art from 1940 is as good as Disney's short cartoons, and that's high praise indeed! A couple of wonderful pan B/Gs I would have loved to include, but there was just no way to remove the cel characters. However, I still managed eighteen pieces from one cartoon!

This digitally re-created background art is from "Knock! Knock!," an Andy Panda cartoon in which Woody Woodpecker made his debut.

Take a look, and enjoy this wonderful art from Walter Lantz and associates!OK, I had to include this pan... the cel characters are the first frame in the sequence which pans right.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

While there is little dispute that Walt Disney was the crown prince of traditional animation, it has been said that the (Max and Dave) Fleischer Studio offered some serious competition.

Let's take a look at some POPEYE background art.

Here is the original POPEYE main title:Here, rarely seen, the quite wonderful underlying artwork (as always, click to see the enlarged version)Here's the "Morning, Noon and Night Club" title card (and close-up):Here, a few choice samples of digitally re-assembled B/G art from the "nautical nightclub!"Here's the stage door (note Wimpy's Cafe next door!):This stage door view is a re-created pan B/G:

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Here are a few diverse pieces from THE THREE CABALLEROS.First, a wonderful "global view" of Mexico:A creative setup with a live action movie in a frame...A floral dazzler with an unusual yellow/orange/red color palette (opening flower is a cel overlay):And finally, two very simple but stunning B/Gs, over which the animation really pops. This is a great argument for understatement!